Nicola

[Faceplant]

Heading to Monck park on Thursday with a couple of the crew from Kamloops. Bringing boat. Hope to score a session or two. Plus fish, and wake board. Might be hard to launch from monck. Boat might come in useful for launch or rescue.

[Will]

Heading to Monck park on Thursday with a couple of the crew from Kamloops. Bringing boat. Hope to score a session or two. Plus fish, and wake board. Might be hard to launch from monck. Boat might come in useful for launch or rescue.

First time riding Nicola we ended up at Monck park. With the wind shadow from the trees up around the corner killing the inshore wind, launching is tricky. This time in particular with the wind direction, a normal assisted launch was impossible.
No big deal though, set the kite on the water for a drift launch. Let it pull me downwind and in towards the center of the lake until there was enough wind to water-launch the kite, then BANG! shredding across at mach-1. Great wind, and nice even water chop, easy riding.
Coming back in...approach from upwind with lots of speed and have someone ready to catch!!

[Faceplant]

Thanks. I was wondering about coming back in! Can't wait to ride there again. I love the warm water, and big rollers! Pretty decent waves for a relatively small lake.

[Roxstock]

Just be careful of the weeds when drift launching. I heard some pretty scary horror stories from the locals a few weeks ago.

[Faceplant]

Morning 12m session at Monck park. Pretty seeet. Clouds broke, sun came out and solid 9m conditions over at old sailing center. Took the boat over. Friends drove in. Probably 8 kites, men and woman. 9 out of 10 as far as Nicola conditions go. Tomorrow looks promising.

[Roxstock]

Sweet. How was the chop/waves?

[Faceplant]

Waves a little unorganized. Wind was pretty south in the am and switched direction slightly.

[C36]

Nicola. Second new-to-me spot in this stay-vacation sailing season. Over the years I had heard late-starting, puffy, rolling swell. We arrived about 1 pm to glass. After spending three days last week at China Creek willing the wind to arrive, I had my doubts about the three-hour trip up, but the 15 mph wind line arrived with authority while Tsawwassen and I ate our lunches. Tsawwassen was first out on his foil and 4-sonething. I followed with 5.3/116/23 and was glad of the smaller fin from the start. The lake had a playful roll right from the start and jumps could be had in both directions. Tsawwassen traded the foil for FSW 110. I stopped to add more downhaul then did a downwinder to the kite launch at Quilchina Point to see if would be of interest to Ethan (yup). Wind was steady enough that I made it back up to the windsurfing launch in three tacks (four reaches). Sized down to see if I could get the 4.5/92 going and the wind just kept coming. Fun power-three-hours! Water was getting lifted off the lake just after we left the water. Good call coming up. Bad call not staying over for the second day (WG and EC both downgraded the second day option so headed home).

Gallery (to view as a slideshow click the screen icon top right)

[Michael]

Thanks for coming up Dave, it was a blast! Glad you got a few shots of the glassy lake before the wind kicked in. What a day!

[adam2]

I was at Monck for the first time last week. I spent my time windfoiling and tried wingfoiling for the first time too. It is an ideal setup for foil boards that let you slog to the windline. And the -1 to 20 knot gust/lulls were interesting, but it was great and I would totally go back! There was wind to sail everyday, those evening sessions are magic.